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“He claimed smokers were switching to cheaper legal products”. I banged on for ages that this was the real reason the tobacco industry was opposed to plain packaging, but I do not recall the main stream media ever making the point.

Maybe the government needs to look more at how to help people give up smoking rather than sticking to the punishment options. There is nothing sadder than seeing the homeless in melbourne fishing through bins for butts.

All public health interventions eventually lose steam, it’s not a lurking disease or bug this is human behaviour. I would think it prudent to wait a little more time (5 yrs) to see how the last one of PP Packaging goes.

If the tobacco industry really were worried that plain packaging would reduce brand loyalty and thus increased brand switching it would have been far smarter to have been honest about this in its public campaign opposing plain packaging.

The challenge seems to be to stop young people from taking up smoking. As a general rule, adults don’t take up smoking, children do. I have never heard of anyone taking up smoking when they were 40 or 25. Nearly all smokers start either while they are still at school or shortly thereafter. But if someone has not started smoking by the time they’re old enough to vote, the Tobacco industry has probably lost them.

So the key to further reductions would seem to be to take away any ‘glamour’ and allure that smoking has for young people. In that we seem to have been partly successful – fewer young people take it up. But you see 15 year-olds practicing smoking. It must still seem delightfully wicked, rebellious or ‘cool’ to them. Telling young people that it’s naughty or that something bad will happen to them when they’re very old (say 40) won’t cut it, although if smoking caused acne they probably would not take it up.

Smoking is a filthy habit, it stinks, the smoke gets into your hair and clothes (the smoker’s and those nearby), causes nicotine stains on fingers and teeth and causes bad breath. Who would want to kiss a smoker. Maybe this could be given emphasis in anti smoking campaigns directed at the young.